The Take

More days than not, Korean-pop band BTS is trending worldwide. Their popularity extends from Seoul to Santiago, and we wanted to know why. This Quick Take explores the band's universal appeal, and what happens if mandatory military service in South Korea forces it to break up.

In this episode:

Michelle Cho, K-pop fan and scholar of South Korean film and media.

For more:

Three ways that BTS and its fans are redefining liveness

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Allan Lichtman has accurately predicted the outcome of every US presidential election since 1984. So will he be right again this year? He offers up his forecast this year with The Take, and explains why his methodology still works 36 years after its inception.

In this episode:

Allan Lichtman, professor of history at American University in Washington, DC.

For more:

Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House by Allan Lichtman

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After 16 years, the center-left Dominican Liberation Party is out in the Caribbean country. The new president, Luis Abinader, a businessman turned politician, was sworn in just hours ago. Now, he'll lead a country plagued by corruption, a fragile economy, and COVID-19. We hear from a local journalist and a Dominican-born U.S. Congressman about what people hope will change with the new administration.

In this episode:

Indhira Suero, journalist in the Dominican Republic. Adriano Espaillat, U.S. Representative for New York's 13th congressional district.

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Twitter (@ajthetake), Instagram (@ajthetake) and Facebook (@TheTakePod).

Egyptian women have had a breakthrough fighting sexual violence — and the authorities are listening. After more than 100 women accused one man of assault and harassment, the consequences he faced surprised some observers.

But the activists leading the charge online have also faced death threats as they try to expand their movement. Many say this reckoning over sexual assault is long overdue, but how far does it still have to go?

For more:

Egypt's sex assault accusations spotlight social stigmas

Complaint filed with National Council for Women over 2014 gang rape at Fairmont hotel

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Ireland's Mother and Baby Home scandal destroyed families, cost up to 6,000 babies' lives, and emotionally scarred an estimated 30,000 women — and it's just one part of a system of institutional abuse. Al Jazeera documented how this network of abuse is a window into the church-sanctioned violence against women in Ireland, and the government’s alleged attempts to sweep it all under the rug.

In this episode:

Laurence Lee (@laurielee67), Al Jazeera journalist.

For more:

Watch the documentary that inspired this episode, "People and Power: Ireland's Mother and Baby Scandal".

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Twitter (@ajthetake), Instagram (@ajthetake) and Facebook (@TheTakePod).

More than 1,000 current and former Doctors Without Borders employees have signed an open letter demanding the aid organization root out its institutionally racist, colonialist and white supremacist policies while examining its hiring practices and workplace culture.

A manager in the United States and a former supervisor in South Sudan talk to The Take about the discrimination and racism they’ve experienced, and their colleagues’ fears about speaking out.

In this episode:

Alaak Dau, former logistics supervisor for Doctors without Borders in South Sudan, and Urshula Edwards, supply manager.

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Twitter (@ajthetake), Instagram (@ajthetake) and Facebook (@TheTakePod).

It takes a lot to deal a blow to a city like Beirut, but Tuesday’s blast was like nothing Lebanon has ever seen. In the 24 hours following the explosion, Al Jazeera correspondents sent The Take voice notes covering the aftermath. The explosion didn’t just destroy Beirut’s downtown, it also destroyed the country’s lifelines to stave off collapse amid an imploding economy and a spike in coronavirus cases.

The question now is: How will the Beirut explosion affect all of Lebanon's other crises?

In this episode:

Sara Moussa, Al Jazeera's Lebanon producer, and Timour Azhari (@timourazhari), Beirut correspondent for Al Jazeera.

For more:

Lebanon's future goes dark

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Twitter (@ajthetake), Instagram (@ajthetake) and Facebook (@TheTakePod).

A spike in gender-based violence is one of the side effects of the pandemic. In Sierra Leone, violence against women was already a national crisis. Today, we revisit an episode from last summer about efforts there to end sexual violence from the top down — and the ground up.

In this episode:

Sam Liebmann, director of The Husband School, and Vickie Remoe (@VickieRemoe), writer and blogger.

For more:

Watch the documentary The Husband School on Al Jazeera.

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Twitter (@ajthetake), Instagram (@ajthetake) and Facebook (@TheTakePod).

Alvin Cole, a Black teenager, was shot and killed in February, a month after his 17th birthday. The officer accused of killing him is Joseph Mensah with Wisconsin's Wauwatosa Police Department — and Mensah is accused of shooting and killing two other men of color. These shootings haven't seen as much attention as other incidents of police violence in the country, but today, we're telling the story.

In this episode:

Tracey Cole, mother of Alvin Cole; Kimberley Motley (@KimMotleysLaw) International human rights attorney; and Dania Diaz (@RocNation) Roc Nation Managing Director of Philanthropy.

For more:

The US movement to abolish the police

Voices from the US protests

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Twitter (@ajthetake), Instagram (@ajthetake) and Facebook (@TheTakePod).

Today we're bringing you something new, and we're calling it a Quick Take — a shorter episode about something that caught our attention this week.

A lot of us have been ordering dinner from delivery apps a little more often throughout coronavirus lockdowns. There are at least a dozen popular apps to choose from, and what we've noticed across them all are the fees. They aren't new, but they're hitting restaurants harder during the pandemic.

In this episode:

Yara Elmjouie, AJ+ presenter of "Eat This with Yara."

For more:

Gig workers in the time of coronavirus

Connect with The Take: 

Twitter (@ajthetake), Instagram (@ajthetake) and Facebook (@TheTakePod).